


a shell against the sky

by rainphee



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: (nothing super angsty just like reflecting on it and stuff), Fire, Internalized Homophobia, Other, also raiden is trans yes im right no i dont accept criticism, it’s very much raiden focused so if you dont like raiden you wont like this, raiden thinks about his struggle w being gay while snake and otacon kiss. thats it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 09:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20618924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainphee/pseuds/rainphee
Summary: Things go bad on Big Shell, and Raiden watches it all happen.





	a shell against the sky

Raiden coughed in the enveloping smog, lungs aching with every tear against his throat. The scent of ash and burning gasoline pressed at his skin, at his blood vessels, the whole world covered in a cloud of burning.

He ran. He could feel the sweat under his suit-  _ that wasn’t supposed to happen, it was supposed to wick away, keep me cool-  _ and the metal, like fire under his feet-  _ that’s not supposed to happen either oh  _ God-

The scars on his chest itched. His eyes were wet and his hands kept slipping on the butt of his gun. But Raiden kept running, even as the smoke ripped away layers of his skin until he was shivering and naked and scrubbed clean by the fires of purgatory here in this damned  _ fucking Shell. _

He burst from the hallway in a plume of sparks and immediately doubled over and hacked up an ashy blob of phlegm. The Shell creaked ominously behind him, and he turned and looked back, spit trailing down his chin, eyes watering and open wide.

When had it exploded? Why? It was like a torch against the rapidly greying noonday sky, belching carbon dioxide and the smell of death. If he closed his eyes, he thought he could hear screaming- the ghosts of the men eaten up by flames and cracking foundations, opening their hungry bellies below them and flinging them to the bottom of the ocean.

No-

No, wait.

Someone  _ was  _ screaming. 

Screaming for  _ him. _

Raiden’s heart took up a pounding residence just behind his teeth as he faced the fire, really truly faced it, refused to angle his eyes up to the blank sky. Someone was in there, someone he recognized-

“Raiden!  _ Raiden _ , help me, please!”

He ran back in.

It was all smoke and fumbling hands in there, all coronas of heat and melting metal, and he saw Otacon’s glasses wink in the fog, round and flat moons rapidly dusted black. He was dragging something- some _ one _ , frantically, and Raiden grabbed on to the person’s arm and squeezed his eyes shut and pulled, and together they stumbled awkwardly backwards until the smoke let go of its iron grip on their necks.

It was Pliskin- no,  _ Snake _ , it was Snake, and Otacon collapsed against one of the connecting bridge struts and took deep gulps of the cleaner air. His face was haggard and worn, his eyes streaked red with tears, and he pulled Snake up into his lap, cradling him tenderly as he began to wake up.

Raiden watched, lungs pushing against the Skull Suit as he panted, as Snake’s eyes slowly fluttered open and Otacon gave a strangled cry of relief. He flung himself into Snake’s arms, the two so close that they seemed like they might stick before they pulled apart.

“David, you idiot,” he mumbled, his hands on his temples, sweetly framing his face. “Dave, you almost died.”

“Couldn’t die,” Snake replied, his mouth quirking into a smile right after he finished coughing. “Not when you’re around to save me. My guardian angel.”

Otacon barked an aborted laugh and then they were kissing, holding each other tenderly, hands on faces and chests pressed against each other. Raiden ached, but stayed quiet.

He averted his eyes when the ache got too much, the ache of jealousy, of some unnamed something they had that was missing in one of the cracks in his heart. He looked up, at the burning torch of the Shell against the sky, and in between thinking about the mission, Raiden wondered.

He just wondered what he was missing, and where he could find it.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed some pointless rambling! check me out at [tumblr](https://rainphee.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/rainphee) if you wanna talk


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